Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by ongss

Buying Porcelain Basin Cabinet from Online Sellers

ongss — Sat, 26 Mar 2022 10:19:44 +0800

I visited a few physcial showrooms and noted the choices for the basin cabinets are quite limited.

I like the designs from the online sellers, particularly those with porcelaine top. The prices from Taobao are quite competitive. Some of these sellers are also offering their products at local online platform. However, I have concerns over the logistics.

Anyone has purchased those porcelaine basin cabinet either online or physical stores? Mind to share? Thanks

Ground Court Yard vs Cover Car Rorch/Roof Garden

ongss — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 23:14:45 +0800

I am renovating a property. Initially, I plan to convert an airwell into an indoor courtyard. with a covered terrace and next to the living room. There is no roof for this courtyard and I can plant a big tree. From the 3D modelling, it looks very nice from the living room as well as the views from the windows of the room and staircases. Since it is a split level property, the view from the dry kitchen is also great.

Due to the constraint of a fire hydrant, the width of this property is only possible to park three cars. However, after reviewing the needs to have more than 3 cars, I am exploring the option to by changing the plan i.e. building a covered car park for two smaller cars and a roof garden on top. The disadvantages for this option are:

- may not have enough natural light.
- the car exhaust emissions may go into the house.
- the view from the living room and other locations are not great.

The pros of course my kids can park her car under the covered car park and not outside the house. Also, I can maximize the use of the land.

I understand that from the architect's point of view, the spatial quality is compromised.

Actually, my plan is to keep this house for about 10 years. Would like to make a survey, would you prefer more car park? Or, you like to have a big tree inside your house?

PPR pipes for Hot Heaters

ongss — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 23:40:01 +0800

Anyone has used PPR pipe for hot water plumbing?

My contractor recommends to use PPR pipes instead of copper or stainless steel tubes.

Anyone has used these PPR pipe before?

Thank you.

Large size swing and sliding glass door

ongss — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 16:19:47 +0800

Read the article today about the house renovation. Quite interesting to view the picture of the NJ House at Putra Heights - the large swing and sliding door.

https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/living...-embrace-nature

I saw similar doors in another youtube video - the planter house at Bangsar.

My architect proposed a similar design and I am looking around for a supplier that could quote me for a similar design for a gross size of 5m H x 4.21m W. Wonder if anyone know good suppliers that could deliver?

Thank you.

Contractors' All Risks Insurance

ongss — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 11:28:57 +0800

I am going to renovate my property and my contractor is asking me to purchase Contractors' All Risks insurance.

I am a bit puzzled. For me to carry out my own business, I purchase my own Professional Indemnity, Commercial General Liabilitity and Employer Liability insurances. I won't ask my client to pay for these insurances.

For home renovation, is it a norm to get the client to purchase the Contractors' All Risks insurance?

Help needed: data recovery for Win2008 and NAS

ongss — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 23:02:19 +0800

I need helps from technical experts. I have the following set up for my company:

- Win2008 R2 with RAID 5, 8x 450G harddisk. Only 6 of them are active since Win2008 R2 has a limit of 2TB. 7th and 8th are in the logical drive but not used.
- A USB harddisk with Windows Backup daily.
- A NAS with iScsi LUN. Essential files are copied from Win2008 R2 to this NAS folder by folder. I schedule Windows Cmd to copy folders by folders.

Now, my Win2008 RAID has a harddisk failure. I was too naive to take up the failed disk and swap 8th disk to the failed bay. Then, a disaster happened, the sever restarted by itself and failed to boot up. The system prompted to disable the logical drive by pressing F1 (which is defaulted) or pressing F2 to face the risk of data loss.

I called my supplier to come in. After evaluating the situations, we believe the best solution is to press F2. The system started to boot up and we recovered the image from the USB with latest image. I thought by using so, my risks can be managed because I still have NAS folders as the backup. Then, I just realized, after restoring the images, the folders in the NAS were wiped out. They are empty now.

Now, I am very concerned. What happen if the USB harddisk restore fail. My folders in NAS is now wiped out already. Is there any data recovery expert here could share the options I have?

Thank you.

Motorised Blinds

ongss — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 17:25:04 +0800

Would like to find out if any forummers have installed motorised blinds?

My FB feed suggested a few pages. I am kind of interested in something like Ziptrak. Then, I found another website www.smartcurtain.com.my. Any forummers have experiences in these products?

Pickpocket Alert at Pavillion KL

ongss — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 17:28:10 +0800

[YOUTUBE]SnyJ0s8y0ag[/YOUTUBE]

(a) At 5:30pm, 1 Jan 2019, a group of pickpockets stole my daughter’s wallet in Pavilion KL. I told the store manager that a group of Filipino were around us.
(b) The store manager sent me a whatsapp video at 12:26pm, 2 Jan 2019 and that video confirmed my understanding. That group of pickpockets actually tailed us at least 2 – 3 shops.

Be alert, the modus operandi is similar to the incident in 2017

https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4268125/all

Shops that do button graphic restoration

ongss — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:49:17 +0800

My car's internal aircon and window lock buttons peeled off and I went to a workshop at Kota Damansara. They managed to restore the window lock button perfectly. Unfortunately, they did not have the graphic for aircon buttons. I was told there is another shop at Sunway, which can restore the button. Anyone know the shop?

In US, the graphic can be ordered through website and they have Youtube for step-by-step restoration. But, I am not good in this sort of skills. Prefer to find a shop to do it. Any recommendation?

http://superiorrestoration.com/categories/...mbz-10-graphics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef4gbuvAkzg

Advices to those like to give short notice

ongss — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:15:08 +0800

This week alone, I already read two threads about employees leaving with short notice or without notice

https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3469948
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3476811

For those employees earning between RM800 and RM900, I am not surprised. However, for someone with 10 years working experiences, what a shame to we fellow Malaysians.

Let me share a bit about my experiences in this sort of cases:

For those earning at minimum wage, most of the bosses would just ignore.
Frankly, the losing sides are the employees. If one cannot view things from the employers' points of views, he/she will forever look for jobs and never become a boss.

For those fresh graduates or earning around a few thousands, my advice
Remember, reputation is something one can't buy with money. If one can change jobs, his/her ex-colleagues and HR change jobs too. The world is small, one day, your cv will be in their inbox. You can imagine what will happen.

For those experienced hires
For those that have nice bosses, I think nothing will happen. Bosses want to spend time in making more money and not wasting time in nuisance.

But, if you meet nasty bosses, be careful of the following:

a) 5k - 20k legal fees is nothing compared to their monthly entertainment expenses or even the road tax for their luxury/sports cars. For those managers in MNC and public listed companies, money to pay the lawyers does not come from their pocket but from the companies' shareholders.
b) It may seem to be stupid to spend 5k - 20k legal fees to pursue RM500 or 1k compensation, but the company needs to make an example to ensure none of the remaining staff will do the same thing again. So, in long term, the cost of spending 5k - 20k legal fees is justified and effective tools.
c) You also need legal fees to defend yourself. If you lose, you pay your lawyers and ex-employer. You also waste your time to go to court hearing.
d) The worse nightmare is Background Check. When you progress in your careers, you will look for better jobs in established companies. Nowadays, Background Check is very common. Once your name appear in the list of Civil Litigation or Industry Court, chances for you to get the job is discounted.
e) Of course, to some smart fellows, they may want to hire the unpleasant employment history. However, how to cover? Leave a blank? When the Background Check report shows the actual dates of previous employment (which are different from the cv), your future employer will question. Then, the integrity issue surfaces, why and what the employee tries to hire?
f) If you are applying a position that pay 500k per year, remember, your Background Check is more stringent. In some cases, the new employers will not engage the normal Background Check companies that do the simple checking. Remember, if you are paid 500k per year or more to handle budget of multi-million, the new employer hire private detective to do background check. You would be amazed that these sort of report could even trace to EPF contributions, which you try to hide.
g) Lastly, if you want to migrate, litigation cases jeopardize your application.

I personally know someone who lost a job offer (for 500k per year) because of unprofessional behaviour done 8 years ago.

Before you decide to leave with short notice, think twice.